Woody Allen defends himself on 60 Minutes in '92

The following is a script from "Woody Allen" which aired on Nov. 22, 1992. Steve Kroft is the correspondent. Victoria Gordon and L. Franklin Devine, producers.

It
usually begins with an emotional domestic breakup, parents fighting over the
kids. And then in the heat of a
bitter custody battle, one party charges the other with an unspeakable and
frequently unprovable crime, sexually abusing the children. In some case, no doubt, the allegations
are true, in others a weapon of revenge.
It's a story we've done before on 60 Minutes, but this one is different
because everyone knows the parents, at least from the movies.

The
father is Woody Allen, writer, director, actor. The mother is Mia Farrow, his
frequent co-star and the mother of his three children, two of them
adopted. He is accused right now
in the newspapers, perhaps later in a court of law, of abusing their 7-year-old
adopted daughter, Dylan. Woody
Allen doesn't deny having an affair with 21-year-old Soon-Yi Previn, whom Mia
adopted when she was married to conductor Andre Previn. What he does deny is that last August
at Farrow's Connecticut country home in the midst of a bitter but still private
custody fight, he molested 7-year-old Dylan.

Woody
Allen: A gigantic industry has been built on a total non-event, and when I say
total non-event, I mean total non-event. It wasn't--it wasn't as if, you know,
I tickled my daughter or something and much has been exaggerated. I'm saying
nothing at all. I mean, I went up and played with the kids, read them stories,
did--did my usual things. We
played out on the lawn and, you know, had a wonderful time with them, and out
of this has grown lawyers and psychologists and district attorneys and private
investigators and--I mean, I'm saying it's a multimillion-dollar industry that
has sprouted up over a total non-event.

It may be
a non-event to Woody Allen, but not to Mia Farrow and not to authorities in Connecticut,
who are required by law to investigate every reported incident of alleged child
abuse. It is that investigation
and the attendant publicity that convinced the reclusive Allen to sit down with
us in his Manhattan apartment and discuss the situation, no holds barred.

The
allegations are that you took Dylan into an attic or crawl space...

Woody
Allen: Mm-hmm.

Steve
Kroft: ...that you touched her in her private part.

Woody
Allen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Steve
Kroft: Is there any truth to that at all?

Woody
Allen: Well, be logical about this.
I'm 57. Isn't it illogical
that I'm going to, at the height of a very bitter, acrimonious custody fight,
drive up to Connecticut where nobody likes me in a house-- I'm in a house full
of enemies. I mean, Mia was so enraged at me and she had gotten all the kids to
be angry at me, that I'm going to drive up there, and suddenly, on visitation,
pick this moment in my life to become a child molester. It's just--it's just incredible. I could have--if I wanted to be a child
molester, I had many opportunities in the past. I could have quietly made a custody settlement with Mia in
some way and done it in the future.
I mean--you know, it's so insane.

Allen is
cooperating with the investigation. He's made his own psychiatric files and the
files of his children available to authorities. He's submitted to a polygraph
and a battery of psychological tests. The reports we were shown would seem to
support his contention he's not a child molester. Why then would Allen's 7-year-old daughter tell a Connecticut
doctor otherwise?

Woody
Allen: Either she has been coached methodically to tell the story because...

Steve
Kroft: By Mia?

Woody
Allen: By Mia, yeah, because first of all, several weeks before it happened,
Mia called me on the phone and said--in the course of an argumentative phone
call, she said, "I have something very nasty planned for you.'"And I
said, "What are you going to do, shoot me?"

Steve
Kroft: When did this happen?

Woody
Allen: This happened several weeks or a month before the allegations.

Steve
Kroft: This was last summer.

Woody
Allen: Yes. This was a month
before this happened. And on many,
many occasions, many occasions, over the phone and in person, Mia had said to
me, "You took my daughter, and I'm going to take yours."

Steve
Kroft: What did she mean by that?

Woody
Allen: She meant by it that I had formed a relationship with her 21-year-old
daughter and she was going to get my daughter, who's Dylan. I only have one daughter. That's what she meant. She was going to seek her...

Allen
contends that from the moment Mia Farrow discovered the nude pictures he'd
taken of Soon-Yi, she considered him morally guilty of child molesting, even
though Soon-Yi was legally an adult.
A month before the alleged incident with Dylan, Allen says he found this
note on a door while he was at Farrow's house for Dylan's birthday. It reads: "Child molester at
birthday party! Molded, then abused one sister; now focused on youngest
sister. Family disgusted."

Steve
Kroft: Mia wrote that note?

Woody
Allen: Oh, yeah.

Steve
Kroft: That's her handwriting?

Woody
Allen: Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

Allen
says he's always been a devoted father, a constant presence in his children's
lives, and he's threatened a lawsuit over a recent magazine article that
implied he had an unhealthy obsession with Dylan. Not so, according to Allen, who says if Mia Farrow had
problems with his behavior towards Dylan, she didn't raise them when it came
time for him to adopt her daughter.

Woody
Allen: She wrote a glowing, glowing letter, or an affidavit, saying that I was
just a loving and a caring and attentive father, and that I was--that my
adopting Dylan would be great benefit to her. This was her sworn affidavit, you
know.

Steve
Kroft: When did she write it?

Woody
Allen: She wrote it in December of last year.

Steve
Kroft: A month before things exploded.

Woody
Allen: Yes, yes.

Steve
Kroft: A month before she found out about you and Soon-Yi.

Woody
Allen: Yes.

And what
was Mia's reaction when she found out about Soon-Yi?

Woody
Allen: What happened was crazy behavior that became incre--you know, terrible rage,
death threats. Look, if this is
not irrational to you--I mean, she accused me of child molestation on August
4th, right?

Steve
Kroft: Right.

Woody
Allen: And that I molested my daughter.
You--you know, I molested my daughter and August 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and
9th--you know, the week after, she's fully saying, "When do we begin our
new movie? I'm going for my
costume fitting next week." And I--she made an appointment with the
costume designer on the movie, and she--and I said, "What do you mean, the
new movie?" And she--and I--and she said, "Well, you know, I--I'm supposed
to go in and see the costume designer.
I've got to get my fitting, and I--we're going to begin shooting in
another five weeks." And I said, "Are you kidding? You're accusing me of child molestation,
and you think we're going to just go on with the movie?"

Steve
Kroft: What did you say to her?

Woody
Allen: I said that--you know, of course, "This is insane." I mean, I
said--you know, I told my--my lawyer that, you know, they should call her and
terminate the contract, and I went out and hired another actress to play the
role.

And as
time wore on, Allen says the situation did not improve.

Woody
Allen: You know, the first time--in the first days or something, I felt, "This
is completely justifiable." I have turned up in an affair with another
woman, and that other woman is her daughter. I started getting phone calls all night long, and death
threats, and--and calling me the devil and evil incarnate, and--and--and she
ran out and adopted two kids, and suddenly ran out and you know, baptized a
number of kids. She was never religious for 60 seconds in all the years I knew
her, then suddenly ran out and baptized the kids and told me that she had found
God, and now everything was going to be directed toward a richer life and a
greater life, and she was at peace and she was forgiving. And 24 hours later,
she was threatening my life, threatening to stick my eyes out.

Steve
Kroft: Did she threaten your life?

Woody
Allen: She's threatened my life many times. I mean, she called me and
threatened my--she's threatened to have me killed and to kill me. And to--and to stick my eyes out, to
stick my eyes out, to blind me because she became obsessed with Greek tragedy
and--and felt that this--that that would be a fitting, you know, vengeance.

Steve
Kroft: Did you take it seriously?

Woody
Allen: I took it seriously in the middle of the night. When you get a phone call at 4 in the
morning saying that you're going to be killed and that your eyes are going to
be put out, you get scared because it's the middle of the night and your
heart's beating, that's what--you know, when it got to be daytime, you know, I
felt better, and I--moving around in New York City I always feel--you know, I
always feel scared anyhow, so this was no worse.

Steve
Kroft: Was there ever a time when you started to think, maybe she means some of
this?

Woody
Allen: Yeah. The--the--she--she
sent me a Valentine card. She
didn't send it to me; she gave it to me.
And I said, "Oh, thanks," you know. And I went downstairs, I got into my car and I opened it up,
and there...was a very, very, very chilling Valentine, meticulously worked
on. I mean, I--one hesitates to
say psychotically worked on--you know, a Victorian Valentine and photo of the
family, and through all the kids was thrust needles and a steak knife stuck
through the heart of the thing.

Woody
Allen: And I got scared because, you know, that was--that was one of the times
that I thought, 'My God, this is really'--you know to--if you look at the
thing, it's quite frightening.

Steve
Kroft: Is it possible that Mia was just so upset by everything that had
happened, that something convinced her that something had happened to Dylan?

Woody
Allen: Oh, that I don't know. But
I mean, nothing, nothing...

Steve
Kroft: I mean, is there room for that mis--misunderstanding?

Woody
Allen: There is no possibility.
There is no possibility that anything remotely ever happened to Dylan or
that I ever did anything to Dylan, and I'm saying not even in a cursory way.

Steve
Kroft: Is it possible that Mia believes that?

Woody
Allen: She may believe it and want to believe it. She may believe it and have convinced herself of it; or she
may not believe it. In the most
cynical version of it, you know, Soon-Yi believes that she does not believe
it. Soon-Yi thinks that it's
absolutely in character, that she has made it up quite calculatingly.

And what
about Soon-Yi, who Allen has said he's deeply in love with and turned his life
around? And what about the way Mia
discovered their affair?

Steve
Kroft: I mean, she found out about it by finding some rather embarrassing pictures.

Woody
Allen: Yes. Correct. I mean, what is the question?

Steve
Kroft: I presume that's not the way you wanted her to find out, or did you want
her to find out?

Woody
Allen: I never--I never really thought that--I never really thought about
it. I mean, I--you know, I don't
know--I don't really know. I think
eventually as that situation got more and more serious, I would have told her about
it.

Steve
Kroft: One of the recurring themes in your movies over the years...

Woody
Allen: Mm-hmm.

Steve
Kroft: ...has been the question of guilt.

Woody
Allen: Mm-hmm.

Steve
Kroft: And I think one of the things that seems to bother people a lot about
this...

Woody
Allen: Mm-hmm.

Steve
Kroft: ...is the fact that from your initial statements...

Woody
Allen: Mm-hmm.

Steve
Kroft: ...there was no sense at all that you had done anything questionable or
wrong.

Woody
Allen: Well, from where I sat--of course, I understand why people think that
and they're correct in--in--in their--their perceiving it that way. From where I sat, I did not feel that,
but I can see what...

Steve
Kroft: It never occurred to you that--that this was going to be controversial,
that...

Woody
Allen: Look...

Steve
Kroft: ...that might be a problem here?

Woody
Allen: ...it's conceivable--yes, yes, it's conceivable to me that it's
controversial, that it was controversial.
I understand that. And as I
say, I take full responsibility for that.

Steve
Kroft: Did you have any reservations about it?

Woody
Allen: Reservations about what?

Steve
Kroft: About getting involved with--with Soon-Yi?

Woody
Allen: Did I have rese--I didn't have reservations because I had--it was a
totally separate thing. Wha--what
I'm getting at here is there has been an attempt to link my relationship with
Soon--Soon-Yi with charges of child molestation. They're two completely different
things. I have an adult
relationship with Soon-Yi. Those
people that feel--they want to feel that it's--it's questionable and not their
taste or they--she's too young for me or she's Mia's daughter, and--or whatever
they want to think, I'll take that heat.
I--I'm responsible for that.
I accept all the criticism that they want, you know, that--it's my life
and it's Soon-Yi's life and I--I accept that. That does not mean that I should be charged with child molestation.

Steve
Kroft: Is this still an on--still an ongoing relationship with you?

Woody
Allen: Yes, it is. I mean,
she--you know, she's away at school and you know, so--so it's limited by
that. And she has a few years to
go before she graduates. And
that's what she's mostly focused on, is--is getting her education. But yes--yes, it is ongoing.

Steve
Kroft: Does she live here?

Woody
Allen: No, no, no, she doesn't live here.
She lives--she has a room at school.

Steve
Kroft: You're still seeing her.
You see her on weekends or...

Woody
Allen: Yeah, I see her when she--when she gets off school. I'll see her on weekends and, you know,
she gets off for a holiday or something.

Allen is
busy now filming a new movie. Mia
Farrow has been replaced by Diane Keaton.
He is awaiting the state of Connecticut's decision on whether or not to
prosecute him for child abuse.

Steve
Kroft: It's such a pernicious allegation...

Woody
Allen: Mm-hmm.

Steve
Kroft: ...very difficult to disprove.

Woody
Allen: Mm-hmm.

Steve
Kroft: Is there any way that--that you can recover your reputation?

Woody
Allen: I don't think my rep--I can ever get my reputation back, but I don't
care about that. It's irrelevant
to me that if I walk down the street and someone thinks, "Hey, wasn't that
the guy that was once accused of child molestation? Well, he--he denied it, but we never really knew if it was
so or not." You know, that doesn't bother me. That--that--that's the least
of my concerns. I care--if you
tell me that I--that I could see my children and be with them and all of that,
and that--and--that--that's all that I care about.

Steve
Kroft: What about your career?

Woody
Allen: It doesn't matter to me if tomorrow you said to me, "No one is ever
going to see your films again," or "You will never be hired
again," this kind of thing.
It doesn't--you know, it--it would not matter to me.

Steve Kroft:
As we said, this is Woody Allen's story.
If Mia Farrow would like to come on this broadcast next week to tell her
side, we've already made that offer, and we're waiting to hear from her.